Swamp Dog

The nomadic roaming feels good to me. I love arriving in a campground after dark (and, sometimes under the cover of dense southern-coast fog) and waking up to a new world; one night it's along a tidal basin, another beside miles of dunes and palm trees. Here, outside Savannah, we're camped in an old oak forrest that has an understory of palm trees! Each morning
in a new place provides a fresh chorus of birds. Laurie and Marley take a long walk each morning and I do yoga — yes, there is JUST enough room for that! I miss my classes, though. I miss the ritual of walking down our street and entering the large spacious yoga studio filled with all sorts of people on mats. There I do manage to be entirely alone and focused on my little cushioned “island”. Maybe I just miss being able to focus intently on feeling every part of my body and breathe through each move while being told what to do by a teacher. Perhaps I need more time with my own practice in order to drop into that feeling all by my self. In our little RV.

Marley in a swamp, Savannah

Palms under oaks

Warning in campground, Savannah

Savannah home

 
So on Saturday we were arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina. We jammed our unwieldy RV into a dead end for the day, and for the perfect photo op, snuck through a mucky marsh’s edge alongside the house where The Big Chil and The Great Santini were filmed; a grand old dame of a house with a long dock into the river way. This is a town of docks and crab traps and people very proud of their local cuisine. With good reason. Laurie is feeling inspired and back in our little formica “kitchen," she cooked a wonderful rice with okra and red pepper stew. By the way, the trick to making okra not “slimy” is to soak it in lemon juice before cooking.

Laurens Street, Beaufort; Big Chill house

Big Chill house

In Beaufort, we camped outside town on Hunting Island, which is striking and strange, full of slow decay, tidal renewal, stillness, and motion. Entire dead trees covered in barnacles and toppled on their sides and filling in a new kind of forrest right in the middle of the tidal sweep—Southern gothic on the beach. Very unexpected. I loved walking in the fine damp sand at low tide with the occasional interruption of a dead tree across my path. Marley luxuriated in the warm tidal pools around the tree roots.

Several images on Hunting Island campground beach....

I’m enjoying conversations with strangers in the gas station shops, with the park rangers, and other travelers. People ARE so friendly here. And relaxed. Yesterday we visited Savannah and it is less homogeneous than Charleston and Beaufort. Art students with turquoise hair, interracial couples, gay people all over the place. Many, many dogs attending their humans at outdoor cafes, and of course, enjoying all of the town's 26 park squares. We took one of those trolley tours (my first ever) to get a 90 minute lay of the land and then walked for hours with Marley from square to square, admiring the historic homes and the gracious feel all those squares give to the entire city proper. Everything was so clean. Even the city garbage cans are beautiful (see photo!) As are the downspouts. (See photo!) And we ended the day with a meal of shrimp and grits and jambalya pasta at an outdoor cafe where Marley napped at our feet. 

Savannah home

Pretty garbage

One of many Savannah squares

Savannah home

Savannah downspout. No luck finding one to bring back....

Julia Roberts telephoned here

I love the steps in Savannah!

Another pretty Savannah street